TECHNOLOGY
Ammonia: A Growing Problem
with a Practical Solution
BY JAMES ESTRADA, PHD
i
It's not easy being
a water
treatment professional. First and foremost,
it's your responsibility to provide your
community with safe drinking water in a
sustainable, cost-effective manner. Couple
this with the litany of other obstacles
facing rural communities, including staffing
shortages, escalating operational costs and
limited financial resources to address aging
infrastructure, and it's easy to see why
your job is so challenging on a daily basis.
And if that wasn't enough, communities
like yours also have to contend with
contaminants from nearby agricultural and
farming practices. One such contaminant,
ammonia, has started to draw considerable
attention from water professionals
throughout the U.S. While ammonia is not
believed to pose immediate serious threats
to human health, it can have dramatic
and costly consequences for treatment
facilities and their ability to distribute safe
drinking water to consumers.
Despite no EPA mandated maximum
contaminant level (MCL) for ammonia,
the World Health Organization (WHO)
has suggested a threshold of 0.2 mg/L
for drinking water. Alarmingly, recent
studies found levels exceeding 0.5
mg/L in 44 U.S. states, with multiple
Midwest communities at or near 1.0 3mg/L - more than five times the WHO
recommended threshold.
While ammonia can enter drinking
water naturally through aquifers, excessive
concentrations are often due to runoff
from fertilized fields and animal feedlots.
Elevated ammonia concentrations
can lead to inconsistent or excessive
chlorine demands, corrosion problems,
excessive biofilm growth, increased
concentrations of nitrite (from nitrification
in the distribution system) and taste
and odor complaints from consumers.
Furthermore, ammonia contamination
can interfere with the removal of other
The USEPA and AdEdge accept the 2017 FLC Executive Board Technology
RURAL WATER
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